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Unilever Gets a Better Sense of Demand

by Alliston Ackerman

Consumer Goods Technology

March 18, 2011

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Even before the volatile global economy and unsteady consumer spending, Unilever was on task to decrease costs and maintain profits. In 2006, as part of a company-wide initiative to improve forecasts, Unilever North America tapped Terra Technology to pilot its Demand Sensing solution.

“We’re always trying to improve our forecasts, which drives downstream benefits to the business from lowering costs and improving service to reducing our carbon footprint,” says Doug Sloan, director of Supply Chain Operations Support, Unilever North America. “As part of that broader initiative we discovered Terra Technology, which had a unique capability to contribute significantly to improving tactical forecasts and thus improving a lot of those other measures.”

Using a year’s worth of Unilever’s data, the tool applied pattern recognition algorithms to downstream data to create an accurate prediction of demand. Results were encouraging, but an internal business integration project stalled implementation. Once back on track, it deployed Demand Sensing in 2009, starting with its U.S. retail business.